Saturday, August 20, 2011

ALOHA! Hawaiian Themed Blog Hop 8/20 - 8/21.

Aloha, Crafters!

Welcome to the Hawaii-Themed Blog Hop, sponsored by the fantabulous Nicolette of Beyond Scrappin'. If you've come from Shannon's adorable Purple Lion Paper blog, you're on the right track. If you've happened upon here and want to start at the beginning, please do go to Nicolette's blog, and hang loose!

For this hop, I created a card that made be feel like it was Hawaii all over again. My DH and I honeymooned there (all of the Hawaiian islands) and the South Pacific for our dream honeymoon, 12.5 years ago. Yes, it's the trip of a lifetime!!! It's the most relaxed, most tropical, most wonderful we've ever felt!

So in trying to evoke that feeling, I came up with this card:

To make this card, I used as a base a print-out of one of the many beautiful sunset pictures I took on that trip. I then (separately) printed out a digi-image of beach chairs that had with it the table with drinks for two, as well as the palm tree. I colored the palm tree and also paper-pieced additional palm fronds. Next, again using Copic markers, I colored the table, drinks and shadowed the white chairs. When done, I adhered it to the base of the water at the horizon.

For the sand, I was going to raid the bottles of actual sand I saved from the beaches there, but frankly, forgot I had them! So I dug around my house to see what I could use -- and came up with a blend of "shake cheese" (dried Parmesan cheese) and ground ginger! I mixed this and then adhered it to the "beach" below the chairs. Where the sand met the water's edge, I made globs of Glossy Accents combined with some mica dust, to make it look like water washing onto the shore.

Now, knowing that this trip was once-in-a-lifetime for us working stiffs, I decided to make this into a retirement sort of card. Here is the very pretty quote I used inside:

I love this card, Ellen! I have never been fortunate enough to visit Hawaii but I have seen enough photos to know what a tropical paradise it is. You were so creative to pair one of your trip photos with the digi image! It turned out really great! Thanks for the inspiration. I'm already a follower.

This is the most wonderful idea! using the special pic and adding - great! and the saying is so appropriate for my bh right now. He was let go after 40 years at the same job and he is having a really hard time 'retiring'. Thanks so much - it brought tears to my eyes. I am a follower...jejaeb (at) cfl.rr.com

I love how you used an actual picture for the background. So amazing! I love everything you did with this and how you paid such close attention to detail with the water touching the "sand". Amazing job my friend!